On a day and night when rain seemed almost a certain winner, the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway ended in confusion just as another rainstorm swept eastern Tennessee. Thankfully for NASCAR, the bizarre finish didn't affect winner Carl Edwards.

With three laps remaining, the yellow caution lights blinked on for no apparent reason since there was nothing on-track to warrant a caution period. Moments later, though, the last of Sunday's three showers swept through the area. With the race almost over, anyway, officials showed the yellow and checkered flags at the same time, with Edwards winning ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Aric Almirola, Tony Stewart, and Marcos Ambrose.

Later in the evening, officials said the last caution period was a mistake. “It was a stupid error,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition. “It appears one of the flag people on the flag stand leaned on the switch that's the manual override for the caution lights. At the time the flag stand realized the caution lights were illuminated, the flagman threw the yellow flag. After that, we froze the field from the tower just like we do under any other caution situation.

“It appears that due to the weather and other things, there's an area (where the manual override switch is located) that wasn't secured properly. The flag person leaned against the switch and turned on the caution lights. We tried to turn them off (but) realized the override switch was on and they were hung on caution. “

Pemberton explained in detail the precise timeline of the incident. Short version: The yellow lights were on for six seconds before the flagman could unfurl and wave the yellow flag. It was another 20 seconds before officials in the tower froze the field in the immediate running order. Scorers reviewed the loop data and found that Kasey Kahne's pass of Jeff Gordon was the only change during those 20 seconds. On the final rundown, eighth-place Kahne was scored behind seventh-place Gordon and sixth-place Denny Hamlin.

At first, neither the flagman nor anyone else knew why the yellow lights suddenly flashed on. “There are two (flagmen) in the stand and a photographer at the end of the race,” Pemberton said. “As you can only imagine, as the day went on and the different scenarios of getting up and down (the flag stand), they were probably pretty cold standing up there all day long. They had on bundles of clothes, so I can only sympathize with the conditions they were trying to deal with. Someone just leaned into the switch that turned on the caution lights.”

Edwards was in command at the time, so the idea of a late-race restart didn't sit well with him. It became a moot point, though, when rain suddenly began. With just a handful of laps remaining, officials never considered drying the track and trying to finish under green. The race began two hours late, endured a three-hour rain delay after just 127 laps, then ended around 9:30, eight hours after its scheduled starting time.

“It says a lot about the state of the leadership of our sport for Robin to come up here and explain exactly what happened,” Edwards said after his first victory this year, his third all-time at BMS and his 22nd all-time in Cup. “He just put it out there that, 'Hey, it was a mistake and it was inadvertent.' For them to come up here and say they messed up means a lot. Even if the outcome hadn't worked for me, I'm glad to be part of something where they say, 'Hey, we screwed up.' ”

And if it hadn't started raining and NASCAR had immediately lifted the caution and called for a green-white-checkered overtime finish: “I was fully prepared to smash into other drivers, bounce off the walls, wreck each other for the win,” Edwards said. “That's what I expected, for it to be pretty crazy because that's where we're at right now. You've got to go for the win.”

Edwards led only the final 78 laps of the 503-lap race, staying out to gain track position under the last caution for Martin Truex Jr.'s spin at lap 426. He's the fourth winner in four races this year, after Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona Beach, Kevin Harvick at Phoenix, and Brad Keselowski at Las Vegas.

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